The Stormborne Vine

Determined spinster vs carnivorous wallflower…

In a corner of rural England, Fern Oakby makes a living through her knowledge of botany. An unusual case erupts during a storm when a Boston ivy turns monstrous and…carnivorous.

However, the solution is not as simple as hacking down the exceedingly rare and hungry plant. The storm also gave life to an origami dragon and bound it to the vine. When a lonely woman pleads with Fern to save the tiny dragon, she is forced to confront a profound question: what defines the value of a life?

In a world where ancient magic lingers, every life—no matter how small or strange—holds immeasurable worth. Fern races against time to unravel dark secrets at the estate. But the vine is growing, and she must find a way to destroy it before it spreads or snatches more lives. Nor is the little dragon the only life in need of saving…

Explore a cozy fantasy series set in Regency England, that celebrates friendship and where magic and nature intertwine.

©2025 Tilly Wallace (P)2025 Tilly Wallace

Okay but not satisfying

I have mixed feelings about this book. It’s not terrible, but it didn’t really satisfy me either. Obviously YMMV, but here’s my thoughts. (Very vague spoilers.)

The good:
The main character, Fern, generally isn’t stupid; you don’t spend your time yelling at the audiobook asking why she’s doing what she’s doing. The cozy details of Regency England are generally well done, from clothing to food to the study of botany. There were a couple of historical inaccuracies (e.g. Fern thinking "curioser and curioser," when that phrase was coined by Lewis Carroll, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published in 1865, long after the Regency period of the book) but for the most part the historical research was evident. The narrator was good and had an actual English accent. Not outstanding, but good enough that the narration didn't interrupt the flow of the book.

The bad:
Although Fern isn’t stupid, she has some major blind spots that don’t read as intentional character flaws, but more that the author herself has these blind spots. For example, although throughout the book she decries male privilege (and, to a lesser degree, homophobia), she actively enjoys and participates in class privilege. In one scene, she decides that she simply must interrupt a lord’s breakfast (something that is highly improper) and essentially forces a footman to take her there and announce her, despite knowing that it will get him in trouble. Because of the potential negative consequences to him, she “generously” offers to go there on her own instead of having him take her there, and he says he would get into even more trouble if he just let her wander the house unaccompanied and interrupt breakfast. So she cheerfully has him announce her, despite knowing that he’s going to get in trouble. There is absolutely no plot reason that she has to interrupt breakfast, no emergency, nothing that couldn't wait an hour or so. She just refuses to wait and is willing to get a servant in trouble because of it. That servant could have lost his job with no reference and his life would pretty much have been ruined, But clearly, she thinks that she’s too important to wait around for someone to finish breakfast and the servant can just suffer. This doesn’t read like an intentional character flaw, but more like the author thinks Fern is being kind by choosing the “lesser of two evils” despite the fact that there doesn’t need to be evil at all, and/or the author hasn't considered the real life consequences to the servant of Fern's actions given the period, and expects the reader not to either. Another example of class privilege is that a few times throughout the book, when she’s trying to be brave, she reminds herself that she “has noble blood flowing in her veins” as if that makes her better than other (non-noble) people. She may have rejected some of the trappings of noble life, but she clearly thinks (and the book ratifies the attitude that) her "noble blood" makes her special/superior. If Fern had period-typical attitudes to everything, it would be more understandable. But to make her aware of and against two axes of oppression but actively participate in and enjoy the privilege of another is, to me, kind of gross.

Additionally, she’s far too focused on her scientific reputation at the potential expense of other people’s lives. Quite a few times throughout the book, she expresses that she doesn’t want to destroy the man-eating titular vine that’s already killed someone because she wants to write a scientific paper and be recognized in the field of botany. Not because she wants to advance scientific knowledge (though that would be suspect enough when it comes at the cost of human lives) but because she wants to be acknowledged by the scientific community for having made the discovery of the plant. In fact, it’s the “bad guy,” the pompous lord, who is constantly saying “we need to destroy it, it might kill my staff or my guests” and Fern is like “...but scientific paper! Fame!” I end up thinking "yeah, I'm with the pompous lord on this one." (Particularly because the "bad guy" is actively worried about his "lower class" staff and Fern is clearly not, or at least considers the risk to servants' lives to be worth the reward of fame/reputation for her.) She ends up taking (live, hostile) samples as well as seeds of the murderous plant and storing them at her house because nothing could possibly go wrong with that. But the book treats her attitude as reasonable and her taking of samples that could escape, reseed, and cover the landscape with carnivorous, man-eating plants as a totally acceptable risk.

My other main problem with the book is the ending. It’s abrupt. The main plot threads are resolved, but there’s absolutely no emotional payoff. At least for me, one of the things that makes a book worthwhile is that in the end when the foe is vanquished and the heroes and side characters are saved from near-certain death, there is an emotional moment, a celebration, an acknowledgment of what they’ve accomplished, some kind of emotional or relational payoff. We get none of that. In fact, there’s a character who has been starved to the point of near-death, and at the end, she finally gets enough energy to be hungry and want to eat, and Fern says “I’ll get you some food” and then wanders off and... does other things. Never actually gets any food for the starving character. The book ends without us ever knowing whether she did so. I mean, one assumes so, but one should not have to assume so. The payoff, the “aww” moment would be when she actually gives the food and we see it happening and we get to feel the characters’ emotional reactions to the knowledge that the starving character is getting better, feel their bond grow because of going through this together. Nope, none of that here! So I finished the book with a vague sense of emotional dissatisfaction.

Anyway, it was a good enough way to pass time while I did chores but I won’t be continuing the series.